Holocaust survivor David Schaecter shares story with South Florida students

MIAMI – Eight decades after the Nazis systematically killed six million Jews, only about 240,000 that survived are alive to share the horrors.  

One Holocaust survivor lives in Miami and visited a school in Palmetto Bay. David Schaecter cherished speaking to students at Palmer Trinity School in Palmetto Bay.

“If I haven’t reached them, then G-D almighty, I’m sorry,” said Schaecter.

The 94-year-old Schaecter recalled the horrors he experienced, tortured in one of the deadliest massacres at Auschwitz and three other Nazi concentration camps in the 1940s.

“My brother, he took so many beatings that were meant for me,” recalled Schaecter. “All these things have not disappeared my psyche. My existence hung on an invisible strength. I thought that G-D was really sleeping.”  

“It was hard,” shared Elsa Gray, an 11th grader at the school. “Part of me was holding back tears.”

Gray listened to his past and asked Schaecter about the future.

She asked Schaecter, “What do you believe we can do to fight antisemitism today?”

He responded, “Keep embracing kindness and keep embracing humanity.”

“He shows us that even though he went through everything he did, he’s still able to believe and be positive,” said Gray.

“Always maintaining positivity,” added John Henry Edwards, an 11th grader at the school. “Look upon even the darkest things with some kind of light.”

CBS News Miami’s Joe Gorchow asked the Head of School, Patrick Roberts: “Why do you feel it’s so important for your students here at this school to hear his message and what he experienced during the holocaust.”

“It’s important because they’re seeing the world around them experience some of these things right now in real-time,” answered Roberts. “To know there’s hope and they can make a difference and be a positive change maker.”

That lesson was wrapped with one simple yet powerful message.